Author Archives: Philip Cisson

Request Comments from your Colleagues      Have you tried the collaboration tool in CapitolTrack Version 3.5? It’s a great feature called Request for Comment which you can find at the bottom of every bill text.      Discuss the bill with colleagues, even those who aren’t CapitolTrack users, by sending a Request for Comment email! Fill out the email addresses and add a due date to reply. The request fields show right on the bill…

Search Analyses      Frequent committee hearings means the legislature is producing Analysis Documents at the fastest pace of the year. Search these analyses and download the resulting documents with a new tool under CTAnalyze: Analysis Search.      Search for a keyword or organization to recieve a table with the measure, location and date of the analysis, how many times your search was mentioned in each document and a button to download the file….

Sort By Text Date      As bills head to their policy committees you can bet they’ll be amended by the hundreds. It’s easy to fall behind this time of year but we can help you manage the workload! Sort your amended bills reports by Text Date to see the most recently amended text, first.      Work from the most recently amended text backward or from the past, forward. Either way, take your review…

Calendars with Attachments      When the Legislature returns from Spring Break, be ready for a busy season of committee hearings. Use Calenadar Reports in CapitolTrack to keep on top of when your bills are being heard! Do you need to keep on top of Position Letters, Facts Sheets or an internal analysis? Include Attachments on Calendar reports to show these crucial documents when they matter most.      Create a policy of uploading your…

Choose Your Summary      Bills are being amended more frequently as committee season approaches. Choose the summary of bill text which best suits you when reviewing those amendments. We have several ‘flavors’ to include in your reports: Summary Brief: The Summary Brief will shorten the full Legislative Digest to the sections mentioning how ‘this bill would’ change existing law. Summary Short: The Summary Short is slightly longer than the Summary Brief and includes the…

Committee and Floor Video Search      Take a look at the Members / Committees tab and find our latest addition to the utility CapitolTrack provides. The Floor/Committee Video tab is modestly populated with a simple searchbar. Type a phrase or an organization in which you’re interested and find a table of the resulting Committee and Floor videos in which your search terms were found. The videos are ordered by which hearings mentioned your term,…

Replacing a User in CapitolTrack      This time of year you may find the need to update the users who can access your CapitolTrack account. While we’re happy to provide your new user with a login, if this new user is replacing a former user, there are five places you can update your account to complete the replacement: 1. The Assigned Field:     Click on your username, then Settings & Tools at the…

Review The Introduced Bills      Friday, February 16th, brings the Legislative Deadline to introduce new bills. Create a report of all bills introduced since session began on January 3rd and use the Last Reviewed feature to ensure you’ve seen them all. Use these Report Filters to create your Introduced Bills report:      Select the Sources: Tracked, Nontracked and Archived to ensure you’re reviewing all introdcued bills. Next, set the date field to January…

January Deadlines      The first two Legislative Deadlines of January have passed, taking with them many of the Bills from 2023 which failed to either pass their policy or fiscal committees. Here is how these first two deadlines stack up against their 2020 and 2022 counterparts:      The first deadline of the year, requiring all fiscal bills in their first house be out of their policy committees saw 276 bills fail, while in…